Pear to Peer

Deployment to render.com

Render provides free hosting similar to Heroku, including up to one database. A credit card shouldn't be needed to use the free tier (other providers such as fly.io require this). Like Heroku, the server will go into a 'sleep' state after 15 minutes of inactivity.

Notes

• Setting up auth0 is not covered: auth0 details are currently hard coded to use mako-2022-scott.au.auth0.com.
• Setting up AWS s3 is not covered: Use the credentials for the s3 bucket that Mat setup.
• Database will be deleted after 90 days: you can create a new db after the old one is deleted. You'll need to update the DATABASE_URL environment variable. Changing environment variables will trigger a new build.

Signup

Signup method shouldn't matter. Complete the signup process and verify your email.

Create a PostgreSQL database

• Once logged in, click the blue "New +" button at the top of the screen and then select PostgreSQL.
• Enter a value for 'Name' - this can be anything. You can leave the 'Database' and 'User' fields blank.
• Leave all other options as their defaults and click 'Create Database'.
• Once the database has finished 'Creating', copy the 'Internal Database URL' for future use.

Create a Web Service

• Click the 'New +' button at the top of the screen and then select 'Web Service'
• Connecting your GitHub account and giving render permissions is optional. You can provide a link to a public repository instead, although this may disable some features such as 'Auto-Deploy'.
  • Click 'Connect account' under 'GitHub', which will take you to a GitHub 'Install Render' page.
  • Select your account.
  • Keep 'All repositories' checked OR select only your pear-to-peer fork. Click 'Install'.
  • You might need to provide a two-factor code at this point.
  • You should then be redirected back to render.
• Click 'connect' next to your GitHub repo OR provide a public repo link and click 'continue'.
• Name: Enter a unique name for the web service. This will determine the url - <name>.onrender.com
• Leave 'Root Directory', 'Environment' and 'Region' as their defaults.
• Branch: likely main or whatever branch has been setup for deployment.
• Build Command: npm i && npm run build && npm run knex seed:run
  • && npm run knex seed:run can be removed after the first successful build to prevent the database being overwritten on every deployment. If you don't want seed data, you can also remove it.
• Leave 'Start Command' as default - node server/index.js
• Expand the 'Advanced' section.
• Add the following Environment Variables (key: value):
  • NODE_ENV: production
  • DATABASE_URL: <Internal Database URL you copied earlier>
  • AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: <access_key_id>
  • AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: <secret_access_key>
• Click 'Create Web Service'.
• The deployment should be completed successfully in 5 - 10 minutes.
• (optional) Go to settings, edit the build command and remove && npm run knex seed:run to stop the database being overwritten on every build.